Photographs of the Taliban: Groomed and Disarmingly Affectionate

When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, representations of human forms were banned—with one exception: men could sit for passport photos (women were represented in their travel documents by fingerprints only).

Young Taliban men flocked to Kabul’s photo studios—but not for passport photos. Instead they brushed their long hair, applied makeup to the flesh around their eyes, and posed affectionately with friends and sometimes guns.

Just weeks after the Taliban were driven from Kabul in 2001, photographer Thomas Dworzak wandered into a photo studio near his hotel and discovered piles of these photographs. As he scooped them up and paid for them, shop owners looked at him like “some stupid Westerner.”

How do you know these are Taliban? Virtually every male in the country - except the foreigners destroying and or plundering it - has a turban and a beard. One would also expect the presence of an AK-47, the truly essential style accessory.